The race (Peace and quiet)

Saturday March 16th

It's the quiet that I love. The wind picks up, lines tighten, the mast tilts, and the boat starts to heave forward. You almost don't notice the speed of the boat slicing through the water, and it's the quiet that strikes you - that glorious quiet of no engine, no noise, just the wind, the water, and the boat.

Fred's yell jolts me out of my reverie as I return to concentrate on the race. We had kind of botched the start by not knowing which direction the start over the line was, and as a result, we missed it by a minute or two. But then we were underway. The mainsail and the jib were up, the crew of myself, Joe Cool, and Captain Fred were up for the challenge, and the good ship Genesis shot forward.

Boats gathering for the start

Fred at the wheel, and obviously some shit-hot sailor ready to ninja around the boat.

There were about 20 or so boats in the race, and after the start, on the first of three legs, we were placed somewhere in the first ten boats. Fred's long sailing experience had the sails trimmed nicely, and so we started gaining on those in front of us. The only concerns were when to tack up towards the first mark, and keeping our eye on the boat Circe, which was keeping pace with us.

We tacked and accelerated, and overtook the boat in front of us, which was making too much leeway and slowing down. We watched them slide around and then behind us as we approached the first mark, amongst the first few boats. I think we were second, but with Circe hot on our tail.

Circe! Beautiful boat, deadly nemesis. I alternated between fist-shaking and admiration.

It was about then that we really screwed up. Fred was used to racing this circuit anticlockwise, but the race committee had changed it to clockwise not long before the start. This meant going around the marker a different way, but Fred was adamant that we should go around it the same way as usual. We started to round that first mark, in second place, when a race committee boat shouted over a loudspeaker that we were going the wrong way. There was much swearing at this point. This was followed by a rapid jibe, and an achingly slow turn around the marker. After these wasted minutes, we were in third place, as Circe had pulled ahead of us, and the leader had put more distance between us.

 

Going wing and wing, and gaining ground

That second leg we slowly gained on, and then managed to almost overtake Circe, but then had to watch as our poorly timed jibe saw us lose time to Circe, and another boat far off to our starboard. We turned around the second marker then, in fourth place, as all the boats made haste towards the finish line. The first two boats were too far ahead to catch, so it became a match race between us and Circe. We managed to make some ground on them tacking, but then had to watch as their full sails upwind of us surged past us on that short final leg. We ended up crossing the line in fourth place, a few minutes behind the first boat. This wasn't bad, considering we stuffed up a few times, but we had hoped for better, and could see that without our mistakes, we may have had line honours.

The two leaders, rounding the second and final mark

The finish line, and Al, on the race committee boat

We sailed back to the harbour, beers in hand, and went out for a meal after. We decided that we had sailed a decent race, and that the boats that beat us all looked like bigger and faster than us anyway. Differences in boats are used to calculate a handicap, and the official results, including corrections for handicaps, wouldn't be out until Monday. On that Monday I started my mini-bike tour loop of the southern peninsula, so I didn't find out until much later the results after corrections for handicaps. We had placed first overall. We had won the race, and with a margin of four minutes to the second placed boat, which was of course, our nemesis for the day, Circe.

Genesis. Boosh.